Desperation over water scarcity has produced any number of schemes to relieve the crisis. But few are as chuckle-headed as a plan to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and transport it 200 miles to urban Southern California.
This is the Cadiz water project, which has been percolating along since the turn of the century.
Arizona and the West could see their water supplies drop by as much as 30% by the middle of the century as warmer temperatures lead to less snowfall, reducing runoff into rivers and reservoirs, changing vegetation cover and altering wildlife habitat.
Those are the findings of a team of researchers led by Erica R. Siirila-Woodburn and Alan M. Rhoades at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who published a paper looking at the likelihood of a “low-to-no snow” future. Their analysis, published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, also estimates when and where to expect the effects of a low-to-no snow climate disaster.
Hosing off the driveway. Watering lawns within 48 hours of a rainstorm. Washing a car without a shut-off nozzle.
Any of those wasteful practices could soon be illegal in drought-stricken California, with fines of up to $500 for violators.
Seven months after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency for most counties in California, his administration is moving forward with something water conservation experts said should have happened long ago — crafting statewide rules to ban the egregious wasting of water.
Today, the California Department of Water Resources initiated a $100 million funding program to restore capacity to portions of the California Aqueduct, San Luis Canal, Delta-Mendota Canal, and Friant-Kern Canal lost to land subsidence occurring during the last several decades.
“Fixing these canals is an important foundational piece to ensure a reliable and climate resilient water supply for California,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “It enables us to move water during very wet conditions, which will be essential to adapting to more extreme weather. Restoring capacity in our existing infrastructure provides a critical link in diversifying water supplies by supporting groundwater replenishment throughout the Central Valley and water recycling projects in Southern California. It’s a prudent investment in our water future.”
Federal authorities have moved to reverse a Trump administration decision that cleared the way for Cadiz Inc. to pipe water across public land in the California desert.
The request filed in federal court Friday, which must still be granted, could deal a blow to the company’s decades-long effort to pump groundwater from beneath its desert property 200 miles east of Los Angeles and sell it to urban Southern California. The project is fiercely opposed by conservationists, who say it will dry up desert springs and seeps relied upon by Indigenous tribes and rare wildlife. Cadiz insists its plans won’t harm springs in the area.
The western United States has built their water infrastructure on a melting foundation, and unless we do something about global warming, scientists worry the consequences will be catastrophic.
The new infrastructure law signed by President Biden includes almost $50 billion to protect communities against climate change, the largest such investment in United States history and a recognition that the effects of warming are outpacing America’s ability to cope.
Mr. Biden has insisted that at least 40 percent of the benefits of federal climate spending will reach underserved places, which tend to be low-income, rural, communities of color, or some combination of the three.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) amended a federal permit application last week to change to the preferred tunnel route for the proposed Delta Conveyance Project (DCP), a move that has Delta advocates questioning DWR’s long-term plans for the South Delta.
The agency said the move was necessary to align the federal permit application – known as a Section 404 and filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) – and a draft environmental impact report that is currently being prepared by DWR. The so-called Bethany Alternative will be the preferred project in both documents, though DWR stressed that the change does not indicate that a decision has been made with regard to the route the tunnel will take if the project is approved.
After a summer spent drying up, Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge finally began receiving a measurable flow of water, thanks to the start of the winter irrigation season on December 1. The refuge can receive up to 11,000 acre-feet of water between December and February depending on how Upper Klamath Lake is filling.
In 2016, California set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. This is the most aggressive emissions reduction target in the United States. California Governor Gavin Newsom is directing California state agencies to accelerate the state’s progress toward its climate goals and is evaluating pathways for the state to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035.
Meeting these goals means a major shift in how electric power is generated and a greater reliance upon renewable sources, which, in turn, will lead to new kinds of investments, markets, and business practices.
One of the most promising pumped storage hydro solutions in California is the proposed 500-MW San Vicente Energy Storage Facility under consideration by a partnership of the San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego.
